


Taste the Sky and Feel Alive Again

by ShowMeAHero



Series: this is my house, and i live in it [4]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Teen Titans - All Media Types, Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Boxing & Fisticuffs, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Families of Choice, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Light Angst, Play Fighting, Siblings, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-31 04:32:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17842514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShowMeAHero/pseuds/ShowMeAHero
Summary: Dick's been out of commission for six weeks after getting shot. His friends aren't letting him off the hook that easily.





	Taste the Sky and Feel Alive Again

**Author's Note:**

> This is truly a fusion of multiple canons into my own bastardized canon. It's largely self-indulgent, but I hope you enjoy it anyways.
> 
> Title taken from ["Vanilla Twilight"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIz2K3ArrWk) by Owl City.

Dick’s shoving his stuff in his gym bag when he hears his front door knob rattling. He turns, listens, but he can hear laughter in the hallway, so he drops his guard. He scratches Ace behind the ears before jogging down the stairs.

_ “There  _ he is,” Wally exclaims, grabbing Dick by the shoulder and yanking him down to give him a noogie. Dick just flips him backwards onto the sofa.

“You ready to go, bro?” Tim asks. Dick shoulders his gym bag and motions to the door.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” he says, and Wally shoves at him from behind. Raven, Artemis, Kaldur, and Donna are in the hallway; Artemis shoves at his shoulder.

“Happy to have you out with us again, moron,” Artemis says. Dick just shrugs, grins at her.

“I’m feelin’ the aster, baby,” he tells her, and Artemis pushes him enough that he almost trips over his feet. “Hey, watch it, I’m still healing up.”

“Are you?” Raven asks. Tim stops Dick with a hand on his arm and tugs his shirt up. Dick just tips his head back and lets him do it.

“This looks gross,” Tim says.

“Is that your professional opinion, Dr. Drake?” Dick asks. He feels another hand on his side, and he looks down to see Wally examining his scar. In the middle of the hallway. Phenomenal.

“I mean, I’m not a doctor, either, but it looks a little irritated,” Wally comments. “Is it irritated? Does it hurt?”

“It  _ always  _ hurts, idiot, I got  _ shot,”  _ Dick reminds him. It’s been six weeks since he got shot in the side tackling a perp to the ground, because he’s the best goddamn cop in the city. He’s been essentially trapped in his apartment the entire time; he’s complained to Tim and Wally enough that they finally decided to drag him out for physical therapy. Or, “physical therapy,” because Dick’s pretty sure no doctor would approve of what they’re doing.

“Should it hurt?” Raven asks. She pushes Wally and Tim away to bend over and examine his scar herself. “It looks like it’s healing well to me.” She looks up at him. “Can I touch it?”

Dick just nods, and she runs her fingertip along the raised line of the fresh scar. Dick shuts his eyes and doesn’t flinch at all. He’s proud of himself.

“He’s doing fine,” Raven finally announces. “He could use some physical therapy, though. Get your abdominal muscles back up to par.”

“Sorry I haven’t been keeping up my training with a hole in my fucking side,” Dick says. Raven raises an eyebrow at him and pulls his shirt back down.

“You’re forgiven,” she says. Wally throws an arm around Dick’s shoulders and digs his fingers into his clavicle, yanks him closer. Dick laughs, settles into his hold. He’s missed being around people  _ so  _ much. Specifically,  _ these  _ people.

“I’m not gonna go easy on you just because you’ve been out of commission, Dick,” Artemis says. “You’re gonna train as hard as you always do. If Wally can do it, you can do it.”

“Ouch, what the hell,” Wally says, and pulls away to match Artemis’ pace. “It seems you don’t have much faith in me, sweetheart.”

“I don’t have  _ any  _ faith in you, sweetheart,” Artemis answers. Wally throws his head back and laughs; Dick looks away, slows down to fall into step with Kaldur and Donna.

“Do you know where we’re doing this?” Dick asks. Kaldur shrugs.

“I am not sure,” he says. Dick glances at Donna.

“Doesn’t matter where it is, I’m gonna beat your ass into the  _ ground,”  _ Donna tells him. Dick grins, raises an eyebrow at her.

“If you insist,” he says. “You know you can always do whatever you want with my ass, Donna.”

“I wish you’d been shot in your mouth,” Donna replies.

“Oh, you’d miss my mouth more than you’d miss my ass,” Dick shoots back. Donna shoves him into Kaldur, but Dick just shoves her right back before hauling her up and slinging her over his shoulder.

“Put me the fuck  _ down,  _ Grayson,” she spits, kicking his hip. He just keeps carrying her.

“Are you allowed to be lifting things that weigh this much?” Kaldur asks, glancing curiously behind Dick’s back at Donna’s face.

“We’re going to go fight each other in some basement, are you really concerned about how much I can carry?” Dick asks. When Donna keeps writhing, Dick tosses her back down onto her feet. She sweeps at his ankles, but he shoves her away and out the front door of his apartment building. The seven of them stand outside in the snow as Wally fumbles through his pockets for the keys to his van.

“Get in, alright, quit loitering,” he says, once he unearths the keys. Dick yanks at the sliding door of the van, and it gives with a horrible grinding sound.

“Jesus, you know Tim and I have money, right?” Dick asks. Wally flips him off and shoves him towards the passenger side seat.

“It’s the  _ spirit  _ of the van, Dick,” Wally reminds him. Dick flings his gym bag into the back and climbs up into his seat beside Wally. “It’s not about what sounds good or what works.”

“It is if it’s the breaks,” Raven comments. Tim offers Donna a hand up into the van when Dick glances back at them.

“The breaks are probably fine,” Wally says. “Either way, it’s snowing. I’ll find a nice snowdrift for us to land in if needed.”

“Just what we like to hear,” Tim shouts to him, over the grinding slide of the van door closing. Wally glances over at Dick a couple of times during the drive; Dick pretends he doesn’t. He responds to the jokes coming from the back of the van instead, makes jokes of his own. Wally’s always seen through his bullshit.

“Hey, man,” Wally eventually says, quietly, when Tim is arguing with Artemis about who’s gonna punch Dick first. Dick would love to chime in, but the look on the profile of Wally’s face says he’s doing something else now. “We can talk about it.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Dick replies. “I’m pretty good. The more I talk about it, the more— I just don’t want to talk about it.”

“Dude, I’ve been gone for, like, a year, and you’ve had two broken engagements, Bruce punched you in the face, you’re on medication now, you got  _ shot,”  _ Wally says. “I know you, man. We can talk about it.”

The back of the van is suspiciously quiet. Dick sighs, rubs at his face behind his sunglasses.

“I don’t really want to talk about it right now,” Dick says again. When Wally opens his mouth to protest again, Dick says, “Just— not right  _ now.  _ I want to just— I don’t know. Be normal, for an hour. I don’t want to think about any of that. I just want to spend time with you assholes and pretend nothing’s wrong.”

“Okay,” Wally says. He reaches over and claps a hand on Dick’s knee. Dick looks down at it, resists the urge to take it for just a second before he gives in and grabs it. Wally squeezes his hand. “You know I’m here for you.”

It’s not a question. Dick nods anyways, answers, “Yeah, I know that. And I’m here for you, too.”

“Well,  _ I  _ didn’t get shot,” Wally says, and the moment of tension breaks. “Seriously, dude. What am I supposed to do at my wedding without you? You never think about me before you get yourself shot, you’re so selfish—”

“What do you mean, what would you do at your wedding?” Dick asks. Wally glances at him, confused. He laughs at the expression on Dick’s face.

“Dude, how the fuck could you  _ not  _ be my best man?” Wally says. Dick’s heart starts  _ pounding.  _ He has no  _ idea  _ what emotion he’s actually feeling in the moment. “You will. Be my best man, I mean. Won’t you?”

Dick nods before he even processes what he’s doing. “Yeah, Wal— Of course I will, I’d love to. That’s— Wow. Jesus Christ.”

“Yeah, can’t always believe it myself,” Wally says, and pulls his hand back to replace it on the steering wheel, and Dick feels cold. Tim’s hand pops through between Dick’s seat and the window, squeezing Dick’s shoulder. Dick claps his hand over it for a moment before they release each other. The rest of the ride is pretty quiet, before they show up at their destination. Raven’s at Dick’s door before he can even unbuckle his seatbelt, and he looks down at her in confusion when she wrenches the door open and offers him a hand.

“I know it sucks,” Raven says to him. Dick takes her hand and hops down from the van. “Sorry.”

“Nothing sucks,” Dick says. Raven rolls her eyes at him and squeezes his hand for a moment. She seems like she twitches towards him, maybe stopping herself from hugging him, so Dick goes for broke and wraps his arms around her, tucks her up against his chest and buries his face in her hair. They just hold each other for a moment before she steps back and pushes her hair back into place.

“It’s okay if it sucks,” she says. She motions to the door of the red-brick building they’ve parked outside of; Artemis leads them to a brownish side door with a rain-faded paper sign taped to it. She unlocks the beaten thing with a key off her key ring and lets them all in. She flicks on the lights as she goes, revealing a massive windowless room with ripped mats for floors. It’s lined with a variety of bags — heavy bags, free-standing bags, dummies, speed bags, all sorts of shit. There’s an open metal closet of equipment in the corner, filled with wraps and guards and pads and mitts and jump ropes. Dick whistles.

“Where the fuck did you find this place?” he asks. Artemis shrugs.

“A few buddies of mine put it together,” she says. “They let me use it whenever.”

“We should’ve come down here  _ years  _ ago!” Tim exclaims. “Nobody else is here, though.”

“No shit, it’s one o’clock in the afternoon on a Monday,” Donna replies.

“Yeah, nobody shows up until night time usually,” Artemis agrees. “Anytime after five, and it’s all training on weekdays. Weekend nights are fight nights.”

“What do fight nights entail?” Kaldur asks.

“Anything goes,” Artemis tells him. She’s grinning when she glances back at him. “Team fights, weapon fights, fist fights. Any of it, all of it. As long as the two parties agree, they can do whatever they want.”

“Lawless land,” Wally says. “Dibs on Dick as my teammate—” He stops, looks at Dick. “—in, like, a month, when he’s useful again.”

“We’ll see who’s useless,” Dick says, tossing his gym bag aside and running at Wally. Wally shrieks, barely turns before Dick’s tackling him to the mats on the floor. Artemis drags them both up by their shirts and makes them stretch and get changed into their equipment before she’ll let them properly fight.

“We’ll fight bare knuckle once she’s not watching,” Wally stage-whispers. Dick smacks him in the chest with his mouth guard before he shoves it between his teeth. He’s missed fighting so badly that as soon as Artemis tells them to go, he’s twisting Wally behind his back, knocking his legs out from under him, and swinging him over his shoulder into the mat. Wally laughs, breathlessly, as all the air gets knocked out of his lungs.

“I feel cheated,” he gasps. “I thought you’d be easy.”

“No easier than I usually am,” Dick says, bending Wally’s arm sideways across his chest. Wally kicks at his legs and wrestles himself free. Their sparring match is just how Dick remembers goofing around with him used to be; it’s so easy to just match Wally move for move, like it was once upon a time. Even once they graduate to mitts and wraps, then to bags, and, eventually, Artemis lets them back into bare knuckle boxing — all of it is like coming  _ home.  _ Bruce fucked a lot of things up, but at least he gave Dick an outlet to work those things out with.

Dick stops hitting the bag, lets Kaldur critique and adjust the turn of his wrist before letting him go again. Dick is acutely aware of Wally’s eyes on him, of Tim’s, of his friends monitoring him to see if he’s back to himself or not. Dick’s not sure he’ll  _ ever  _ be the person they thought he was. He’s starting to figure out that he’s changed a lot, and that maybe —  _ maybe —  _ that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

When he takes a break for water, Wally comes up, drenched in sweat and catching his breath. He smacks Dick on the shoulder; Dick passes his water up without being asked.

“Let’s wrassle, Grayson,” Wally says. Dick glances up at him as he takes a long pull from Dick’s water bottle. The way fighting makes him feel is far more raw than drinking. He  _ knows  _ he needs to get a lid on all of this, but, right now, with his friends’ eyes on him, and Wally’s hand on his shoulder, he just gets up.

“Bring it on, honey,” Dick says. Wally laughs, flings Dick’s water bottle back in the direction of his gym bag, and tackles him to the mats, pinning him with his knees and his elbows. Dick flips him, drags them back up to their feet, knees him in the chest and tosses him backwards over his shoulder. Wally shouts at him, sweeps at his knees. It’s like they’ve choreographed it; it’s synchronized. Dick doesn’t even realize he’s crying until Wally taps out and rolls away, sits up on the mat with his chest heaving, and looks at Dick with confusion.

“Did I hurt you?” Wally asks, breathless. Dick frowns.

“Wh— No?” Dick replies. Wally motions to his face, and Dick touches his fingertips to his cheek to find his face is wet. He stands up, and Wally jumps to his feet, too. “Jesus  _ Christ—” _

“No, no, it’s fine, it’s—” Wally starts to say, but Dick shakes his head. Wally grabs him anyways. Dick fights him off, but Wally just grabs him a second time, pins his arms down, and Dick’s breath catches once before he breaks down. Wally drags him back down to the mat, holds him there as Dick cries silently against his neck. Tim jogs over, kneels down next to Dick and hugs him from the side. Dick feels like a fucking  _ idiot,  _ but it’s also the first time he’s let himself cry in  _ weeks,  _ and the first time he’s done it in front of someone without getting mocked for it in even longer. He leans into the two of them, feels their warmth and their solid presences, and just— lets himself go.

“Hey, is he hurt?” Artemis shouts. Dick hears the sound of flesh on flesh, and Artemis says, “Shit, sorry—” before Dick hears another  _ thump.  _ He laughs wetly.

“Only on the inside,” Dick answers. “And— I mean, I guess, on the outside, I have a hole in my side—”

“I  _ hate you,  _ Dick Grayson,” Donna says, hitting the mat beside him and ruffling his sweat-damp hair. “You know you’ve always got us, right?”

“Unfortunately, yeah,” Dick answers. He drops his head backwards and collides with Raven’s forehead.  _ “Ow,  _ fuck— Raven,  _ Jesus.” _

“I’m here for you,” Raven says. She kisses his cheek. Dick shuts his eyes when Tim whacks him on the leg.

“Tragic,” Dick replies. Wally smacks him this time, and Dick laughs wetly.

“Get traught, Grayson,” Artemis tells him. Dick reaches a hand up, and Artemis takes it, moves to haul him up before he yanks her down into the pile of them. He sits with them, just for a moment. Soaks it up.

“Now, who’s gonna let me pummel them into the ground?” Dick asks. Wally snorts.

“What, so you can cry your way out of it again? No,  _ thank you,”  _ Wally replies, and Dick laughs, shoving his face down into the mat until he’s calling uncle and things feel like they used to again.

**Author's Note:**

> I also actually wrote some books! It was a long road but, I did it! Ta-da! If you want to read either of them, shoot me a message!
> 
> I have a blog now to request imagines - I just like to make people happy. Submit requests [here!](https://imagine-in-the-fandoms.tumblr.com/ask)
> 
> You can follow me on Twitter at [@nicolelianesolo](https://twitter.com/nicoIodeon) or on Tumblr at [andillwriteyouatragedy](http://andillwriteyouatragedy.tumblr.com/).


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